What is Commercial Plus Pricing?

Definition: Commercial Plus Pricing (CPP) is a pricing model offered by the United States Postal Service that provides additional discounts to high-volume ecommerce companies. CPP is a higher-level version of Commercial Base Pricing that can provide high savings to merchants who exceed a defined threshold for number of shipments per year.

How do online businesses qualify for Commercial Plus Pricing?

The main criteria for Commercial Plus Pricing is the volume of shipments based on USPS service:

Priority Mail: 50,000 shipments per year

Priority Mail Express: 5,000 shipments per year

International: $100,000 in postage value

Note that these qualifications are separate—it is, for example, entirely possible for a company to qualify for Commercial Plus Pricing on Priority Mail Express without receiving the discount on regular Priority Mail. Priority Mail and International are measured by shipping volume in the previous calendar year, while Priority Mail Express is calculated by shipping volume in the previous four quarters.

Companies do not actually have to ship the specified number of packages in order to qualify for Commercial Plus Pricing. In many cases, simply being on track to ship that many is enough to qualify for the discounted rate.

Does Commercial Plus Pricing Need To Be Negotiated?

Not necessarily. Some providers of digital shipping labels integrate Commercial Plus Pricing into their software and automatically start applying it as soon as they believe a company has met the criteria for it. Most companies will have to sign something for the USPS at some point in the process, but actually acquiring the CPP discounts is generally an easy process.

How Much Can An Online Business Company Save With Commercial Plus Pricing?

Most Commercial Plus Pricing is done at a scaling rate involving factors like parcel weight and how many items are actually being shipped. As such, there is no way to predict exactly how much a company will save until more information about its parcels has been provided.

In general, however, companies can expect to save more with Commercial Plus Pricing than they would with Commercial Base Pricing, averaging somewhere around 10% more for Priority Mail and scaling down for other forms of shipment.